What happens when Viacom infringes on someone else's copyright, and then that …

Viacom's copyright battle with YouTube took an interesting turn this week as the company has found itself in the embarrassing position of having highlighted the possibly that it committed a little "for-profit" copyright infringement of its own (some would call it "piracy"). Viacom effectively pointed the finger at itself when the company tried to get a Web Junk 2.0 clip removed from YouTube, only to end up exposing the fact that Viacom's VH1 unit had not obtained permission to use the source video that is featured in the clip. Dizzy yet?

Let's backtrack for a second.

North Carolina political candidate Christopher Knight made a somewhat ridiculous commercial as part of his campaign to become a member of the Rockingham County Board of Education. The commercial featured Knight waving light sabers, paying homage to Star Wars (complete with a Death Star) in a bid for election. He ran the commercials on a local television station at the same time that he uploaded the commercial to YouTube.

The clip eventually got the attention of VH1 producers, who decided to feature it on Web Junk 2.0—a TV show that highlights "funny" videos that were found on the web. Knight says that VH1 never contacted him regarding their intent to use his not-for-profit commercial for their for-profit TV show, but he nevertheless remained amused by the development at the time. 15 minutes of fame, and all that.

Yet it gets worse. Knight subsequently posted a clip to YouTube of the Web Junk 2.0 episode that featured his commercial so that he could post it to his blog and stream it. VH1 was not amused by Knight's reposting of the clip, however, and sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube, which was subsequently forwarded onto Knight.

"So Viacom took a video that I had made for non-profit purposes and, without trying to acquire my permission, used it in a for-profit broadcast. And then when I made a YouTube clip of what they did with my material, they charged me with copyright infringement and had YouTube pull the clip," wrote Knight in a new blog posting. "Folks, this is, as we say down here in the south, 'bass-ackwards.'"

Viacom's double standards in this case have drawn attention merely because of their absurdity. The company potentially infringed upon Knight's copyright by appropriating his video without his permission to use on the show, but then Knight subsequently used the broadcast clip on his blog.

To make matters worse, it turns out that every time Web Junk 2.0 uses a clip that came from YouTube without permission, it is violating both YouTube's terms of service and the original creator's copyright. What is a hypocritical media company to do?

Knight says that he won't be backing down anytime soon. "I would really like to fight this as hard as I can," he wrote on his blog. He says that he doesn't want any money—just for the clip to be restored and have it established that other independent content creators have rights under Fair Use to "show how their works are being appreciated in the wider world." The offending VH1 clip is still down from YouTube, but has been reposted by PoliticalSoup.tv's Richard Moore.